s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all]'s Reviews > Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

‘To eat of the fruit means to leave the garden because the fruit speaks of other things, other longings.’

Jeanette Winterson writes prose that seeps into you the way warm sunshine does at the final edges of winter. She has a distinct voice with a confident cadence that can seamlessly sway between realism and the fantastical or fairy tale elements, harmonizing each aspect of her storytelling into a grand orchestral narrative that in each of her books pushes boundaries and doesn’t shy away from experimentation. What’s more is it always comes across as overtly cool and collected, like some celestial being wearing an edgy jacket with “punk as fuck” scrawled on the back. In Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, Wintersons 1985 debut novel that reads like someone already deep into a celebrated writing career, this prose is put to the task of documenting a provincial pentocostal church community and Winterson’s depictions of evangelicalism is so deadpan and unironic at times it practically loops back into satire that the moments of direct criticism feel so nestled up in the narrative to make you understand how integral these dark moments are to the entirety of this lifestyle. Winterson’s use of diction and sharp imagery are as entertaining as they are direct, signifying how surreal the whole experience was to Winterson as she looks back on her own upbringing through the lens of fiction.

The thing is, much of Oranges are Not the Only Fruit is autobiographical and there are very authentic and lived emotions pulsating through every page. Like Jeanette, the young narrator of the novel, Jeanette Winterson was adopted into an evangelical community and faced ostracism for being a lesbian. This book will ring true to anyone who spent their youth at Bible camps and growing up in a church community, which, as shown here, can be tight-knit communities that use religion to validate distrust of outsiders and dominate nearly every aspect of your social and emotional life. For those who are forced out it is like losing the earth underneath your feet, an aspect Winterson examines as a way that members are kept compliant and made to act against their own true selves.

‘History should be a hammock for swinging and a game for playing, the way cats play.’

The autobiographical inspirations acknowledged, this is not simply a memoir, and the act of fictionalizing her own experiences, as well as threading fairy tales throughout as abstract commentary on the socio-emotional underpinnings of the novel, is what gives it true power: a narrative constructed from history taps into meaning and purpose in a way a recounting of history cannot because ‘stories helped you to understand the world.’ This is something Jeanette comments on several times in the novel (the introspective segments blur Jeanette the narrator and Jeanette the author in a gleefully postmodern way):

‘[T]hat is the way with stories; we make them what we will. It’s a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained, it’s a way of keeping it all alive, not boxing it into time…Very often history is a means of denying the past. Denying the past is to refuse to recognize its integrity.’

To write a narrative is to fulfill the integrity of history. Fairy tales and Biblical stories, in this way, are given the same weight in Winterson novels as narratives that construct meaning. This becomes much more prominent in her following two novels, with both The Passion and Sexing the Cherry combining historical narrative with magical-realism to tell a new story from history that gives voice to the usually voiceless, and here Winterson recasts what is undoubtedly told in this particular church community as a wayward youth consumed by the Devil into a narrative that gives the supposed “sinner” the voice to show how they were wronged and abandoned. ‘We are all historians in our own way,’ Winterson writes, and she proudly affirms the powers of storytelling, both as a redemptive and retributive vessel. It is literary empowerment at its finest and teaches us ‘there is an order and a balance to be found in storytelling.’ As she writes in her memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, 'I believe in fiction and the power of stories because that way we speak in tongues. We are not silenced...somebody has been there for us and deep-dived the words.' Winterson has been there and this book can likely be a life raft for those who need it.

‘If there’s such a thing as spiritual adultery, my mother was a whore.’

The novel is framed around Jeanette’s relationship with her mother and, because her mother figures herself an appendage of the Lord, the religious community she was brought up within. Adopted into the family ‘I had been brought in to join her in a tag match against the Rest of the World’ she says from the start, quickly characterizing her mother as someone who considered herself always right and any dissent to be ‘not holy’ as she frequently says. The mother is fully devoted to the church and her only interests are in expanding her devotion, which over time includes working in a religious MLM and reading books on missionary work that are revealed to be increasingly racist propaganda. It is a rigid childhood, one of prayer and routine where Jeantte’s only acquaintances are members of the church, most notably the aging Elsie who was once a young prodigy of the church and has taken a special interest in her upbringing.

‘Eventually, I thought, I’ll fall in love like everybody else. Then some years later, quite by mistake, I did.’

Jeanette is always engaged in passing out bible tracts (you ever get one as a server that looks like a $20 bill and it says something like 'you'd be rich with Jesus' with a church address and you realize they did not tip you...fun stuff) finding new converts. Jeanette converts a young girl she meets and their private bible study sessions blossom into something more. The shame and confusion felt by knowing this is something you want and something that feels right but having been brought up to deny it and demonize it is a really uncomfortable maelstrom of emotions to be in. It can often turn into self-hatred or denial, and as much as one is their own worst critic, one can be their own worst judge, jury and jailer. ‘It is not the one thing nor the other that leads to madness, but the space in between them,’ she comments, and all the internal struggle of denying oneself who you are and being told you are a sinner for simply being yourself is a hellish place to be in between the major events such as Jeanette being caught and facing the public exorcism from the Pastor.

Winterson uses the condemnation of her being a lesbian to look at how aversion to LGBTQ+ folks is often an aspect of patriarchy enforced by misogyny to separate anyone who is not white, heteronormative male. ‘The real problem, it seemed,’ Jeanette observes during her second round of punishment for being found out with another woman, ‘was going against the teachings of St. Paul, and allowing women power in the church.’ While initially it was assumed her ‘going astray’ came from outside influences such as public school (a ‘breeding ground’ for sin, her mother claims), the church elders get right into it and announce that women being allowed to preach opens up a weakness for the Devil to exploit. Jeanette understands then that the church powers exist to ensure ‘the message belonged to the men.’ Reading this novel written in 1985 England still resonates in 2022 America where this same anti-LGBT rhetroic is increasingly used as fundraising grifting for politicians. What Jeanette finds confusing, however, is the insistence that her ‘unnatural passions’ are ‘aping men.’ To sleep with a woman, it is implied, is only something a man can do.

‘There are women in the world. There are men in the world. And there are beasts. What do you do if you marry a beast?’

Much of this is tied into the ways Winterson examines how girls are socialized into submission, doubling down on the repressive nature of the church community for those who are women. ‘I was a little girl, ergo, I was sweet,’ is an early lesson she learns from a lecherous shopkeeper who gives her candies, ‘and here were sweets to prove it.’ It’s a sort of purity culture that is certainly present in many evangelical communities that often teaches girls they should be compliant and submit to men. When Jeanette complains her uncle hurts her by rubbing his beard stubble on her face, she is told that he didn’t hurt her, but that it was ‘just a bit of love.’ She demonstrates the early childhood lessons that a man can harm her and still call it love, all aimed at keeping women subservient in a patriarchal culture. Melanie, Jeanette’s first lover, is thought to be recovered from her sins when she marries a man and devotes her life to having children, to which Jeanette observes she appears docile and ‘serene to the point of being bovine’ with all the spark that drew her to Melanie now snuffed out. Winteron also examines the double standards in judgment on gender biases. She juxtaposes Jeanette’s harmless love with consenting a peer, for which only she suffers consequences that upend her life, to the sexual transgressions and embezzelment of the pastor in the MLM, which harms many people and causes financial strains for the community. While Jeanette faces public humiliation and punishment, this man has people rally to cover his debts and even provide him a paid vacation. The double standard is readily apparent.

‘I peeled it to comfort myself, and seeing me a little calmer, everyone glanced at one another and went away.’

Somehow I’ve gotten this far in thinking about the novel without addressing oranges, which make for a multifaceted metaphor throughout the book. The mother only gives Jeanette oranges to eat, and the gift of an orange is often in place of emotional support, a treat meant to pacify but not heal. Late in the novel when she stands accused by her mother and her pastor, she offers them an orange, much to their confusion. It is a brief but brilliant moment where she puts their own symbol back in their face to express the inadequacy of their support.Late in the novel the mother eventually decides that ‘oranges are not the only fruit’ when it is advantageous to her missionary aims, which reads as ironic when her refusal to understand that heterosexuality is not the only path chased away the member of her flock most dear to her.

‘It is not the one thing nor the other that leads to madness, but the space in between them.’

The orange also appears as a demon Jeanette see’s during times of emotional stress, a demon that asserts demons are not bad, just a change in their life and tells her she can keep her demons and live a difficult life—but one that may be worth the difficulty—while reminding her that her sexuality is normal and being ‘different’ doesn't mean being bad. ‘Everyone has a demon,’ they tell her, ‘but not everyone knows how to make use of it.’ That it is a demo who pushes for self-acceptance and finding autonomy in her life is amusingly scandalous, as it is something conjured from the evangelical teachings yet also in opposition to them. The demon will travel everywhere with her, a reminder that the past follows us no matter what, but that we can survive it because ‘it was not judgment day but another morning.’

What truly brings this book together are the interspersed fairy tales that season the novel and serve as commentary on the story while being fully immersive experiences on their own. The final tale of Winnet, intertwined with the story of Sir Percival, creates a way to grasp Jeanette’s predicament that opens up such an emotional resonance that feels like an earthquake rather than the tremor of discomfort in the aspects of realism. Winnet’s tale briefly retells the novel through fantastical metaphor and leaves us with the feeling of dread with the wizard’s string tied around her that explains the Jeanette’s feeling of being unable to fully escape her mother’s control. If anything, this book is a testament to storytelling on multiple levels.

‘She must find a boat and sail in it. No guarantee of shore. Only a conviction that what she wanted could exist, if she dared to find it.’

Reading Winterson, I feel understood. I’ve had this with other authors but Winterson reaches into my being and polishes elements I didn’t think anyone else could know about. Which is part of the reason we all read, right? To discover we are not alone, that someone empathizes, that someone can put into words things you feel but thought otherwise ineffable. Oranges are Not the Only Fruit is a book that I could see having a huge impact on those who escaped similar situations, or could find themselves in this novel as a compass for where to go next. This book is actually quite funny and warm, despite the difficult topics, and it will pluck every emotional string you have in ways that will surprise you. Most importantly, this book gives hope. A harrowing debut that reads like a seasoned veteran of letters, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit is a must-read.

5/5

‘I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it.’